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"Coffee Mill is Duchamp’s first machine painting and a forerunner of the mechanistic imagery in Dadaist art. He explained that it ‘shows the different facets of the coffee-grinding operation, and the handle on the top is seen simultaneously in several positions as it revolves. You can see the ground coffee in a heap under the cog wheel of the central staff’. It was painted for Duchamp’s brother, the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon, who had asked friends for works to decorate his kitchen." -- From the Tate website accessed: 8/4/2004 http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=4028&searchid=7021full view